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“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

There you go; that’s what’s called a proper career choice: sausage or burger. Difficult and depressing when you’ve had your heart set on being a juicy chop or a succulent sirloin steak but you don’t get those opportunities without qualifications, experience but best of all, knowing the right people these days ….

On the subject of sausages and as it’s Friday and the end of the month here’s the cautionary tale of ambitious Sammy Bell and his misfortunes.

This colourful bicycle advert is for teacher training in Hull (School Centred Initial Teacher Training!) and was one of several around town while the student degrees were being doled out the other week. I suppose if you can make it in Hull then you can make it anywhere. Teaching is not for everyone, and my experience, admittedly many years ago, is that really good teachers are rarer than hen’s teeth. I know I couldn’t do it, at least not without facing manslaughter charges after each lesson! Now I come to look at that bike again it does look a bit bloody …

No you won’t find me making derogatory remarks about council workers changing lightbulbs, no sir, not me. Cheap shot. Beneath me. I’ll simply ask why they came round at about seven in the evening to do this job, surely not on overtime by any chance … Anyhow banished now are the orange glow neon lights of my lifetime, replaced by moonlight-white light emitting diode thingies that save electricity and leave drive ways unlit and gloomy. Still the stars shine brighter, there’s lots of them, did you know?

Every year hundreds of bikes get stolen in Hull so any measure to provide a secure place to park your expensive multi-geared mountain climbing machine (how they sell these things in flat old Hull is a mystery to me) from the thieving toe-rags with bolt-cutters is welcome. This is the recently opened Hull Cycle Hub in what used to be the ticket office of Paragon Station. £1 a day will see your bike locked up and waiting for your return. And if you’ve got a flat tyre there’s even a workshop for repairs. You can also hire a bike from the same place for £3.50 a day. There’s more about all this here.

You know those sisyphean tasks that this town gets itself into, bridges that take years to build, piers that are never mended, roads that will never be upgraded, derelict buildings that defy both the Council and gravity; the list goes on and on. Well now that silt you can see in the background, well there’s now a plan to shift it and all the other sediments from all the way up to Beverley, some eight or nine miles away, out into the Humber to aid river flow. What’s that the poet says about a man’s reach …?